Return to Transcripts main page

CNN NEWSROOM

Camille Cosby Defends Husband; Sony Asked Media to Stop Speaking Hacked Info; NYC Police Cracking Down on Protestors; 130 Killed, 180 Injured in Pakistan School Shooting

Aired December 16, 2014 - 09:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: And good morning. I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me.

Silent no more. Camille Cosby has come to the defense of her embattled husband Bill Cosby who has been accused of sexually assaulting more than a dozen women.

Here's what she said, quote, "I met my husband Bill Cosby in 1963 and we were married in 1964. The man I met and fell in love with and whom I continue to love is the man you all knew through his work. He is a kind man, a generous man, a funny man, and a wonderful husband, father and friend. He is the man you thought you knew.

A different man has been portrayed in the media over the last two months. It is the portrait of a man I do not know. It is also a portrait painted by individuals and organizations whom many in the media have given a pass. There appears to be no vetting of my husband's accusers before stories are published or aired and accusation is published and immediately goes viral."

Now, Camille Cosby's comments followed an impromptu interview Bill Cosby gave to "The New York Post." Our Don Lemon talked with the journalist who talked with Cosby.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STACY BROWN, FREELANCE JOURNALIST, "WASHINGTON INFORMER": I've been talking with his team for a while and it came to a dead end, so I gave it a shot.

DON LEMON, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Were you surprised he answered?

BROWN: I was shocked he answered.

LEMON: Yes. I'm surprised he spoke, considering what's happening, to anyone on the phone regarding this situation.

BROWN: Well, not only was I surprised he spoke at all, I was surprised that -- in the way in which he spoke. He seemed like there was absolutely nothing wrong.

(END VIDEO CLIP) COSTELLO: Jean Casarez joins me now just to talk about Camille's statement and -

JEAN CASAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And I want to talk about that. By the way, Bill Cosby's response through his attorney, John Schmidt, in regard to that statement he gave to "The New York Post," he didn't know it was going to be recorded, he didn't know it was going to be in "The Post" or another publication. He didn't even know it was for publication. So now --

COSTELLO: OK. Stop right there because Brian Stelter is here, too, and he's shaking his head.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA CORRESPONDENT: I guess I shouldn't have rolled my eyes, I'm sorry, but you're a 77-year-old who's been in the media spotlight for 40 years and you don't think you're going to be recorded when a reporter calls you? it just shows what - he's in a different world than the rest of us.

COSTELLO: But I think that, you know, once people heard what he said to that "New York Post" - and I want to bring in Eric Deggans too, he's NPR's media critic.

CASAREZ: And we want to talk about Camille's statement, but I wanted to -

COSTELLO: No, we do, we do, but I -- let's just get this out of the way -

CASAREZ: Give that response from the attorney.

STELTER: Yes. Yes.

COSTELLO: Just, let's get out of the way this - let's get this out of the way first.

So, what Bill Cosby said to "The New York Post" was something like, you know, I hope the black media treats this more fairly than the rest of the media. Eric, do I have that right?

ERIC DEGGANS, NPR MEDIA CRITIC (via telephone): Well, no, I guess what he said was he hoped that the black media would stay neutral is what he said, because apparently he has a feeling that other media outlets have not been neutral. The question is, what does stay neutral mean to Bill Cosby? And the suspicion that, you know, many of us who have been watching this story have, is that, you know, what he really wants is for people to stop asking questions and stop giving interviews to the women who are telling stories about being molested and assaulted by him.

And, you know, the black press has typically been a place where black celebrities who are in trouble can turn to for a more sympathetic ear, in part because its a press that grew up in reaction to segregation, in reaction to discrimination against people of color and has always been willing to give an extra listen to celebrities and people of color who claim that they may be wronged by the system. So certainly he's probably thinking he'll get a more sympathetic listening.

But, you know, I know a lot of professionals in the black press and they're incisive journalists just like everyone else and some people who work in the black press, you know, are a little insulted by the implication that they would overlook substantial claims, you know, made by people about his behavior simply because they work for a publication that's aimed towards black people.

COSTELLO: Well, and this new -- there seems to be a new media strategy, and let's go back to Camille Cosby's letter for just a second. He seems to be mobilizing the women in his life, Cosby I'm talking about, to stand up for him.

CASAREZ: There's so much we can glean from this if we just look at the facts here. First of all, you see the state of mind of Camille Cosby and in that household right there. It's to blame the alleged victims. It is to blame the media.

Also, trying to restore the image that we grew up with, because she says, and you read, he is the man you thought you knew. Also, a different man has been portrayed in the last two months. Well, almost a decade ago it was a very public civil suit, civil settlement, Andrea Constand. That's not a different man? That is really not responded to. Of course, ultimately, we don't have any questions as to whether it's truthful, what these women are saying.

And lastly, we don't know about other media outlets, but with CNN there is a vetting process. There is a pre-interview -

STELTER: There's so much vetting.

CASAREZ: So much vetting before anyone goes on the air in regard to this case or anyone else.

COSTELLO: But one thing that could strike a chord, though, and Brian Stelter, I'll throw this one to you, is she brought up the "Rolling Stone" article, which was inaccurate in many ways and she said, look, the same sort of thing could be happening to my husband. The media's not doing its job.

STELTER: In that case with "Rolling Stone," it was a failure of fact- checking. I think in this case there's been a lot of fact-checking and by many, many other reporters. You know, that "Rolling Stone" case was a single case of one, you know, maybe bad apple reporter who didn't do the right diligence. This is a story that's been covered by the international media, by many, many outlets, and they've all sort of come around to the same conclusion, that there's a lot here that Bill Cosby needs to address.

COSTELLO: So, Eric, you know, I keep asking what the end game is here and maybe it's Bill Cosby making a video, just himself, of no one asking him questions and addressing these allegations.

DEGGANS: I think that would be difficult for him to do. I think Bill Cosby seems to be in a place where he does need to directly address at least the most substantial of the allegations that have been made against him. But what we've seen in the limited amount of comments that he's made and in the statement from his wife, they don't directly address any of these allegations specifically. They don't say exactly what happened.

In 2005 or 2006, he gave an interview to "The National Enquirer," I believe, where he tried to describe what happened in the case that, you know, involved a lawsuit that got settled. But even there, there wasn't much specificity about what happened and how could there have been a misunderstanding.

And, you know, I have the sense, and I think a lot of people who have been watching this story have the sense that even if he gives an account of what actually happened between him and these women, the truth will also destroy his image. It will also have to include, you know, meetings with -- private meetings with women when his wife is not around that people are going to find questionable. I find it - I think it's going to be difficult for him to really come clean about his side of what's happened here because even the truth may wind up hurting this image that we've had of him for so many years.

COSTELLO: All right, I'm going to have leave it there. Eric Deggans, Brian Stelter, Jean Casarez, thanks to all of you. I appreciate it

Still to come in the NEWSROOM, the NYPD says if peaceful protesters turn on its officers, they do so at their own risk. Landing a punch on a police officer, well, could land you in jail or worse. We'll talk about that, next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Sony is sending a message to the media, stop publishing those leaked e-mails or face possible legal action. The studio is fighting back in the wake of a cyber-hack attack that's embarrassed top executives, as well as the a-list actors who have made the studio millions of dollars. And now Oscar winning screen writer Aaron Sorkin, who was slammed in some of those e-mails by Sony co-chairwoman Amy Pascal, is agreeing with the company, saying nothing is gained by reporting on those documents.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

AARON SORKIN, SCREENWRITER, PRODUCER: There are certainly times when the press should -- has an obligation to publish things that were stolen. I talk about the Pentagon papers, but you don't even have to use that as your standard. Loosen the standards a little bit. Is there anything in these e-mails at all that's in the public interest, that points to wrongdoing at the company, that helps anyone in any way? There isn't. There's just gossip there. You can loosen the standards even more, but ultimately you have to dispense with standards entirely in order to be OK with publishing these e-mails.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: All right, so let's talk about this. CNN's Samuel Burke is here and HLN legal analyst and criminal defense attorney Joey Jackson joins me as well. So, Joey, you want to take that first question? Is there anything in

those e-mails besides gossip?

JOEY JACKSON, HLN LEGAL ANALYST: You know, there may be gossip, and I understand, look, this is a major breach, obviously, and I think Sony's very concerned. It's embarrassing. You never want this to happen. And, you know, they don't want it widely reported, but that's the press's job. There's an obligation here to certainly inform the public as to the breach itself and to what goes on.

And to the extent that the information has been disclosed and is out there already, what is the press doing? I just don't get any underlying legal action that could successfully be taken against the press for doing its job.

COSTELLO: And couldn't you argue, Samuel, that, you know, they exposed a racist element in Hollywood that many liberals don't feel exist?

SAMUEL BURKE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: There are other details and gaps in pay about gender. But at the end of the day, the most important story is the hacking. Quite frankly, I report on these hacks a lot. And a lot of companies tell me, listen, we know some of our competitors have been hacked but they never said in public so we have to keep it secret. So it's very important in the story because now the world can see just how susceptible some companies are, the United States are to these hackings and we need to be strong and vigilant about it from the individual to the corporate level.

COSTELLO: OK, so let's be all responsible and talk about the hack itself then.

So, Samuel, Sony may now sensor parts of the interview, that movie about North Korea's leader, internationally. And if they did that, that would make me sad.

BURKE: Look, nobody wants them to sensor the movie. I doubt that Sony really wants to censor the movie either. And there's always back and forth about what should be in a movie, just like there's back and forth about what we should air on CNN. So are there those conversations going on? I'm sure. And we saw some e-mails leaked about some of that back and forth between some of the actors, the writers and with the president. That's always going to happen. But, of course, we don't want it to be the result of the actual hack.

COSTELLO: OK. So Sony's threats to like bring some sort of legal action against anyone who continues to publish those leaked e-mails, do they have any hope or --

JACKSON: Is there any merit to it?

COSTELLO: Yes.

JACKSON: Well, there's always merit when you're dealing with a multibillion-dollar company that, you know, can hire lawyers for days to, you know, pretty much intimidate the media. But, you know, at the end of the day, I really don't see any legal action. The press is doing its job. It certainly has the right to, you know, discuss this information, to make it available to the public. You know, where -- the press is not responsible for the breach, the press simply is reporting on the breach.

And so -- and to the point, Samuel, you're making in terms of - you know, I agree with you. I don't think that they should affect our way of life. Should we start censoring movies now because nobody likes it, another country? We have to be very concerned that we're going to offend somebody? It's entertainment. It's opinion. It's the value that we have here and our way of life shouldn't be impacted because people are upset by it.

COSTELLO: OK, so the other strange thing that I want to get into, so the hacker, whoever they may be, said to Sony employees, like, we have leaked e-mails concerning your personal information and if you don't want us to make that public, all you have to do is contact us. Really?

BURKE: Well, they have -- clearly they have some demands. People - there have been e-mails, some -

COSTELLO: Oh, those nice hackers.

BURKE: There have been these demands from the group purporting to be the hackers. They -- talking about the movie, "The Interview," wanting things changed. But the truth is, there's so much information out there, Carol. I suspect that we are going to see it going on longer and longer and longer.

COSTELLO: No, no, maybe you misunderstood my question, the hackers, the hackers responsible for this -

BURKE: Yes.

COSTELLO: They're offering to withhold data stolen from the company's employees. All you have to do is contact them.

BURKE: Well, I'm sure it's much more difficult than just that.

COSTELLO: Well, I was going to ask you that exactly. So, if there's a way to contact these people, why can't they - why can't authorities find the hackers? Or why can't you file some sort of legal action against the disseminators of the information?

JACKSON: You know, it's a great point to be made, but these criminal offenses that are cyber in nature are very complicated because what they do is they bounce off of different countries even. So in me getting to you, it goes to Thailand, it goes to Italy, it goes to Paris, it comes back. You know, we have a federal government that's very equipped, the FBI that is, to investigate and to deal with these issues, but it's a matter of actually pinpointing who specifically it is.

BURKE: And let me just pick up on that. Nobody has come out and said definitively that North Korea's behind this. We haven't heard that once from Sony, the FBI. All the security experts with whom I've spoken have said they believe because of the evidence that North Korea is the likely person, the likely group behind it. But there is no smoking gun, and that's how so many of these hacks are, you piece it together, you say, well they were awake from this time to that time, that's what time people are awake in North Korea. A lot of times that -- just the time zone alone gives them a lot of evidence. But there's no smoking gun as of yet that we've been told by security experts.

JACKSON: And another thing to mention also, Carol, is there's some indication that it might be an inside job. Now, of course, this is all speculation, nobody knows, but just based upon the manner of the hack, potential passcodes that might have been exposed. Nobody knows. Hopefully someone will find out, but will it be a little, you know, too late by the time that happens? The information's out there.

BURKE: You don't want to the idiot who accidentally gave your password away in a phishing attack at a company, because that happens all the time. Sometimes it's just the weakest link in the chain. That does happen inside.

COSTELLO: All right, Samuel Burke, Joey Jackson, thanks to both of you. I appreciate it. I'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: In Sydney, Australia, an outpouring of public grief at the site of yesterday's deadly hostage standoff. And amid the mourning for those two hostages killed, unconfirmed stories of their heroic final moments. Tori Johnson, the cafe manager on the right, reportedly grabbed the gunman's weapon and there are reports that Katrina Dawson, the 38-year-old lawyer, shielded her pregnant friend from the gunfire. That deadly lone wolf attack is the most likely attack to take place on U.S. soil, in large part because they are extremely difficult to police and prevent. CNN's chief national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto, has more for you.

JIM SCIUTTO, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Lone wolf attacks. U.S. officials tell me consistently they are the most likely attacks to take place on U.S. soil. Key word, lone, by definition, lone wolf attackers don't conspire with anyone else. They may not communicate with anyone else about their intentions. They can radicalize on their own very easily, watching sermons on the web, taking part in online chat rooms and there are many on jihadi web forums. But they can also plan on their own and find all the information they need online for targeting, even for making explosives.

All the most dangerous terror groups are taking advantage of this, not just ISIS, just also al Qaeda, al Qaeda in the Arabian peninsula. And a key moment was a fatwa issued by a key ISIS leader in September of this year . His name was Abu Mohammed Al-Adnani, a senior leader in ISIS. And several attacks since then, including the Ottawa shooter, a hatchet attack in New York against New York police, and an attack on a cafe in Sydney traced back to that fatwa calling for attacks against all the participants in the war on ISIS, including the U.S. but also Australia, the UK and other European partners.

Because lone wolf attacks are so difficult to police, they require a different strategy to try to prevent and control these attacks. One essential part of this is working inside Muslim communities in the U.S. to help weed out the people who might radicalize, who might carry out these attacks, and work with those communities so they can help identify those people. Undercover operations very essential, but counterterror officials tell me consistently as well that the public has a role here. That saying, if you see something, say something, relying on the public to do their part to help identify these attackers before they strike.

If there's a good thing about lone wolf attacks, is that they tend to be less ambitious and therefore less deadly, but still very difficult to police. Several counterterror officials will tell me that at that at the end of the day, we may just as a country have to live with this risk because it's impossible to know what's inside the mind of every al Qaeda or ISIS sympathizer, sadly, until they strike.

COSTELLO: Jim Sciutto reporting. The New York City police department says it will start cracking down on protesters who turn on its officers.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: The flash point came during this protest on the Brooklyn Bridge against the death of Eric Garner and Michael Brown. Demonstrators wrestled with two police lieutenants as they tried to stop a man from throwing a trash can on to the street below. Both officers wound up in the hospital. Police later found a bag containing three hammers and a mask. Several officers say before this happened, at another Garner protest, an officer was punched in the head. You can see this from this YouTube video, here it is in slow motion. There you see it. Police commissioner William Bratton put it bluntly, quote, "We do not take attacks on our police officers lightly. Never have. Never will." Police arrested one man for assault. They're looking for as many as six other protesters involved in these scuffles. On "NEW DAY," Deputy Police Commissioner John Miller said diffusing tense situations takes better training.

JOHN MILLER, DEPUTY NYC POLICE COMMISSIONER: You look at the number of shots fired by police officers, it's been going down dramatically. The number of uses of force by police officer had been going down dramatically. The number of civilian complaints against police officers has been going down and went down another 7 percent. So, there's a bit of reality, but there's also perception. And when you have this widespread perception driven by the disparity between thoughts in the minority communities of New York, which are now the majority communities.

New York is now a majority minority city, where you have those divides, you have to address it directly. And that means better community relations, more outreach to the community, better training for the police officers because the simple fact of the matter is if that is how people perceive their police, if that's how they feel, the only way you can do that is through engagement. Right now the crime picture is pretty good. We're about to have the lowest crime year in recorded history. But when you have a schism between parts of your communities and your police, it's something you have to work on. (END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO (on camera): Since the start of the large scale protests, New York City police have arrested 331 people, including six for assaulting police officers.

Checking other top stories for you, at 53 minutes past, the parents of nine victims of the Sandy Hook massacre have filed a joint lawsuit against the makers of the gun that killed their children. The suit is claiming Adam Lanza would not have been able to kill 26 people in five minutes without his weapon of choice, a Bushmaster AR15. The suit says Bushmaster knew, or should have known, that the sale of this gun posed an unreasonable and egregious risk of physical injuries to others.

Sony is fighting back. The movie studio now threatening the media to stop publishing those leaked e-mails or face possible legal action for any damages or losses. The move comes in the wake of a cyberattack that's embarrassed top executives as well as the A-list actors who have made Sony millions.

You think you have baggage? Listen to this. U.S. Airlines pulled in $960 million in baggage fees last quarter alone. That's up nearly 9 percent from last year. Add in ticket fares and cancellation fees and the profits skyrocket to $34 billion.

Question for you this morning, smart or sexy? It's a dumb question, right? Well, it turns out it's not an easy choice if you're a little girl who wants to look like a princess, or Kim Kardashian. In my latest op-ed, "Sexy or Smart," I explore the reasons girls lose interest in science,

math, and engineering around the first grade. Debbie Sterling, a Stanford engineer who created the toy company GoldieBlox, is actually doing something about it. Goldie, the doll who rules the GoldieBlox world isn't beautiful like Princess Anna, not sexy like Barbie, but brainy, curious, and quirky like Sterling herself.

Sterling's company also advertises that in a decidedly unprincess-like way.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(MUSIC PLAYING)

COSTELLO (voice-over): Cute, right? I sat down with Debbie Sterling to talk girls, math, science and the princess culture.

DEBBIE STERLING, CREATOR OF GOLDIEBLOX: I created this character, GoldieBlox, as this girl inventor, engineer. GoldieBlox is a company I started two years ago. My goal was to get girls interested in engineering and technology through toys.

COSTELLO (on camera): I can name lots of male scientists, like Bill Nye the Science Guy, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Greene, but a woman's name doesn't come to mind. Why? STERLING: I think growing up as a little girl, I certainly had no

interest in becoming a scientist, or a mathematician, or an engineer. I thought it was this boys only club for geniuses, and I pictured this old, white man in a lab coat.

COSTELLO: Like Einstein, right?

STERLING: Right. With no friends. Through GoldieBlox, I'm hoping to change that, and change the face of what an engineer looks like. You know, the toy industry has this conventional wisdom that boys like building and girls like dolls and that's just human nature. Girls are just completely inundated with these characters where they're the perfect, polite princess and they're, you know, waiting to be saved by the knight in shining armor. I was hoping that, you know, if girls looked at Goldie and they wanted to be like her and do what she does, that they might value their brains as much as beauty because it's so important that we inspire our girls to become the builders and innovators of the future.

COSTELLO: Is it getting better? Are girls becoming more interested in science and manth?

STERLING: The sad truth is actually the numbers are declining.

COSTELLO: Oh.

STERLING: And there were more women graduating with S.T.E.M. degrees in the '80s than there are now. Research shows globally that girls outscore boys in science in other parts of the world, but not in the U.S., and it suggests that it's not a biological disadvantage at all but, in fact, it's cultural. We don't have a national shortage of princesses, we have this national shortage of engineers, and I think Goldie is less about fashion and more about action.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: You can find my op-ed "Sexy or Smart" at CNN.com/opinion. And thanks, as always, for your comments. I appreciate it. The next hour of CNN NEWSROOM starts now.

And good morning, I'm Carol Costello. Thank you so much for joining me. Calculated and cold blooded. A new attack fuelled by Islamic extremism, this one killing dozens of school children in Northwestern Pakistan. Taliban fighters storm a school and unleash a wholesale slaughter of children. Now, the group has long dreamed of similar bloodshed on American soil. In Sydney, Australia, the stunned grief that terrorism has landed on its shores amid the heart break of yesterday's hostage crisis, tales of heroism involving two of the victims.

But let's begin with the Taliban school attack and the drama that is still unfolding. Reporter Michelle Stockman is in Peshawar. Tell us more.

MICHELLE STOCKMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, the updates we have right now are that 130 people have been killed, over180 injured in this horrific attack by six Taliban suicide bombers into a school in Peshawar. Now, we understand that this is a school with a capacity of about a thousand students and it's a segregated school. The girls are educated in one area and the boys in the other. And we understand from testimony from doctors who are treating the patients and the injured who had been brought to the hospital say that among the dead bodies that have been brought to the hospital, they're only boys. The injured are only boys.

And so it appears to be a systematic culling, if you will, of boys at this school by the Taliban. They were under instructions to target kids between the age of 12 to 16, and this might be part of what they're thinking is revenge against the Pakistani military as most of the children at the school are children of parents who are in the military and likely would join the military in the future. So, this could be the reason why they are attacked in this way. But it's just really a horrific scene here.